


Papyrus's Insecurity

by FluffyKnight



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Everyone tries to help Papyrus but fails, Papyrus with issues, Papyrus-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-04 01:51:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11544948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FluffyKnight/pseuds/FluffyKnight
Summary: Papyrus has always had issues and trouble being useful.





	1. Papyrus's Problem

The Surface was as beautiful as Papyrus could of imagined. Not even the pictures in his 'Generic Robot Knight saves the Princess from the Dragon' book could compare to the true deal. Papyrus was extremely excited to explore the unimaginably vast landscape of the Surface. Not to mention, Papyrus could prove he his usefulness by helping build the monster settlement!

Yes! Papyrus was set on that goal, being useful and helping build the settlement!

Constructing the town proved to be an immense challenge for the now Captain of the Royal Guard, but Papyrus doesn't back away from any challenge. Even when his bones make a strange _crunching_ sound when he moves heavy materials for a long time. 

His brother and his friends were getting very worried over Papyrus' state of health, but why should they? Don't any of them know how awesome Papyrus is? The majesty, King Asgore, suggested that Papyrus take a break, but Papyrus is no slouch like his lazybones of a brother! No matter how hard they all tried to convince Papyrus to take a rest, he simply refused. And when they forced him to stay home with magic, the Great Papyrus simply had to use his genius problem-solving skills to escape to keep working. Papyrus hasn't returned home since then, even with all the missed phone calls and texts. Not even his brother, with his short cuts would convince to return home. No Papyrus has to prove he is useful.

He doesn't understand why everyone tries to hold him back. He must prove that he isn't useless and a naive idiot. Even with the strenuous work, and the spontaneous fits of sleep, he must keep going on and prove them that he will be just fine! Afterwards when the settlement is done, he might take up their offer of taking a break. Well maybe not.

As time goes by however, Papyrus notices that his bones have grown weaker and he constantly exhausted all day. No matter, the Great Papyrus doesn't falter from his important work. 

One day, Papyrus decides to carry a heavy sack of materials for the settlement. Whether they accepted his help or not didn't matter to Papyrus. As long as he proves that hes useful, yes, useful... It doesn't matter when all the townspeople get all concerned and try to persuade him to rest. No, they are just like his brother, always trying to coddle him and make him useless. NO! He will not give in!

Papyrus didn't pay attention to the odd green, thorny vine.  Papyrus trips and as a result, cracks his skull wide open on the sharp jagged rocks along the area. The last thing Papyrus saw a green, thorny vine before his vision filled with black.

* * *

 

Papyrus was awoken to the sound of notifications beeping away in his phone. His head was throbbing in agonizing pain, yet Papyrus willed himself to check his phone. 

_78 missing phone calls_

_231 missing text messages_

Most of the phone calls and texts from Sans, some from Undyne, and the others by everyone else. He briefly wondered why no one has found him yet, but then realized that he had moved from his previous location from where he had fallen.

Not to mention that Papyrus' phone was magically unable to be tracked. 

Papyrus couldn't fully check his surroundings, but he knew that he must be in a remote location from him not to be able to hear the bustling of the settlement nearby. 

Papyrus looked down, and saw his limbs being twisted in quite unnatural places, and were covered in thorns. That won't stop Papyrus however, he must prove he is useful to his friends, his brother, and everyone else after all. 

When he attempted to move on his two feet however, he made a grunt of pain. He couldn't muster up the magic to check his stats, but he'd imagine they were pretty low.

Papyrus felt like he was being watched. Despite all the agony he was in, the feeling of being watched overpowered the pain.

Though he ignored it, he didn't need help, he needed to prove he was useful to everyone. 

Papyrus could distinctly hear a far off laugh in the distance, and in the corner of his eyes, he spotted a flash of white and yellow.

But Papyrus paid whoever it was no mind, and made fruitless attempts to get off of the ground by himself.

Until, to his horror, one of his limbs started slowly dusting and scattering to the wind. **No. No. No. NO.**

More limbs start to dust, and Papyrus is surprisingly emotionless during his death. This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to be **useful** to everyone like he always swore he would be.

The other monsters in the underground we right. He was useless and a nuisance. Even when Papyrus befriended Frisk and became useful, the feeling quickly faded away when they broke the barrier and became ambassador. 

Toriel became a school teacher. Undyne became Alphys' lab assistant. Alphys was the royal scientist. Sans became a comedian. Frisk was an ambassador. Asgore was leader. 

Every monster in the underground had someting useful to do except him, naive little Papyrus. He tried so hard to be useful like his friends, but in the end failed once again. 

Da-Gaster was right, he was a failure, and destined to die as one.

 

 


	2. Broken Determination

It was a Sunday today. Frisk grew to dread Sundays. To an outsider's perspective, they would find Frisk to be a bizarre child to even fear those days. Yet they had good reason to.

It is the day that Papyrus usually hurts himself while working at the settlement much more often than other weekdays or weekend days.  While all types of monsters from their new home on the Surface would take the day off and socialize with each other, Papyrus would be the only one working there. 

Frisk doesn't understand that his only reasoning for working himself to near death was to be 'useful'. Their friends seemed to share the same confusion and concern as Frisk does. Especially Sans, he likes to hide his true emotions behind his well guarded mask, but they knew that he was trying his best not to lose his cool. 

No matter how many times their friends and them point out that he was completely useful already and didn't need to overwork himself, Papyrus simply deflects it by saying that his fabulous spaghetti gives him enough 'bone energy' to work. Even when they expressed their concerns over the small webs of tears and cracks in his joints, Papyrus simply replies by saying that he was great enough to obviously handle it and not to worry. Of course they all did the opposite of not worry and tried to come up with ultimately fruitless ways to stop him. 

None of it worked, even when Undyne threw him over her head and carried him to his house by force, and guarded him. For that, Papyrus simply escaped using a combination of his blue magic and jumping threw the window. Papyrus still worked despite Asgore insisting him to take a break, deflected Sans, Alphys, and Toriel's pleas to rest. 

Frisk wasn't happy with this ending at all, and wasn't satisfied. They expected something tragic, like one of the Dog Squad members ending up with a sudden death. They didn't expect the most positive and energetic person they know slowly lose himself. 

They almost considered resetting, but Sans must of caught on, because he stopped them before they can do so. Even though they argued with him that they needed to reset to fix Papyrus before he ends up like this, but there was no use arguing against him. 

That was in the past, Frisk was determined to help their slightly deranged friend. It was a Sunday, and Frisk went out to look for Papyrus, and was set on knocking some sense into him. Hopefully, they can have their friend back and keep their happy ending. 

They tried calling Sans, however for some odd reason, he didn't even pick up. Sans always picked up the phone, just in case of an emergency. 

Maybe he was busy? But Sans always brought his phone with him to work...

Well, they can check up on him later, they had an important mission to do. 

They quickly got information from the other monsters that Papyrus was last seen walking up in the forest, carrying a wagon cart, probably meant to garnish heavy materials. 

With pure determination, they set out to hunt Papyrus down for a talk.

* * *

A buttercup flower was giggling to himself, looking at Frisk who was far ahead of him to hear. He couldn't wait to see their reaction. He certainly enjoyed Sans's.

* * *

Frisk was searching for the red-scarfed skeleton for quite awhile, before they nearly jumped with joy at seeing the sight of a red-scarf in the distance. They didn't register the fact that it was on the ground in their excitement. 

Their excitement wasn't misplaced, they haven't seen Papyrus ever since he ran off somewhere, not telling any of his friends where he was staying at. 

They were already practicing in their head what to say and how to respond to his deflection.

Frisk wasted no time running towards the stationary scarf while crying out his name. 

_Before they found the pile of his dust, Frisk thought that they would never reset._

_Before they found his dust covered scarf, Frisk thought that they could have a final, happy ending._

_Before they spotted a familiar flower, Frisk thought they could have peace._

Only tears blinded them as they summoned the familiar RESET button in front of them. A wave of pure guilt, sadness, and anger flew threw them as they madly tried to slam down their hand on the button. 

Before they could do that however, a cyan and yellow flash was present in the corner in their vision. The normally relaxed looking skeleton was replaced with an unreadable looking one, while he used his magic to prevent them from resetting.

Frisk babbled incoherent pleas and sobbed uncontrollably as Sans held them comfortably, and they took a shortcut to a location Frisk didn't know of or care at the moment. Anger and intense sadness was still present in their soul and as a result, tried to fight to get to the button, but Sans wouldn't let that happen. Eventually, after Sans comforting words, they gave up in his arms. He must of left them at some point as they couldn't feel him anymore, but they didn't care. 

They were still too overwhelmed with their emotions to hear, but they swore they could hear Flowey's laugh in the distance as well as the roar of gaster blasters in the distance. 

 

 


End file.
